Sunday, October 28, 2012

The Harringtons and Martins leave, new couples and "Flat Stanley" arrive

Flat Stanley meets Chinggis Khan

It was a wild, whirlwind of activity while the Harringtons
were here. We did some major sightseeing on Monday which was to be the last day
of their visit. Their flight to Hong Kong on Tuesday was cancelled and
rescheduled to Thursday morning. They were able to be with us two more days.

After watching the presidential debate in the morning, we took
the Harringtons to the Black Market on early Tuesday afternoon. They were able
to meet with President Clark later that afternoon while we went off to teach English
that night.

We debriefed with the Harringtons Wednesday morning after which they
attended a mission staff meeting in the afternoon. We hosted them in our apartment
for dinner that evening. We said our farewells and they jetted off to Hong Kong
Thursday morning.

New office. Also
on Wednesday we finished (not really) moving into our new office down the hall
from the English Office.

Elder Richardson installing our computer

Part of our new office is filled with 314 large print
Books of Mormon written in a language for the tribe of people living in the
Bolivian and Peruvian Andes. They were sent to Mongolia by mistake and were
stored in the vacant space along with mission pamphlets and Books of Mormon. We
do like our new office though. It won’t be a high traffic office like the English
office.

The Gardners and the Stewarts

Welcoming the new
couples. The new couples arrived on Wednesday. The Stewarts are taking the place of Elder
and Sister Martin as the Mission medical team and the Gardners are the
new English and Welfare Missionaries. We were occupying the English office until the
new couple arrived and they finally did.

Elder Stewart was a family practice physician and cattle
rancher from Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada and his wife was trained in Public
Health nursing. This is their first mission as a senior couple.

Elder Gardner and his wife retired to Cedar Hills, UT after
a career in banking with Citibank in Sioux Falls, SD. Our paths overlapped
briefly when he was a Stake President in Sioux Falls and I was a Bishop in Huron.
Another coincidence is that they met October, the English office secretary and
translator, during her visit to the United States. When October returns at the
end of November, they will work together in the same office.

The Gardners had previously served a mission in Cambodia and
a temple mission in Hong Kong that was cut short by Sister Gardner’s knee
injury. They finished their second mission in Oakland, California.

A great climate controlled market

We had a major food shopping trip with them on Friday and hosted
both couples for hamburgers, potato salad and chocolate cake on Saturday night.
We also had our own shopping trip to the Sunday store (a six story building
filled with individual shops – kind of like an indoor market) where
Darlene bought some long fur-lined winter boots.

Goodbye to the Martins

The Martins farewell
and “Flat Stanley” arrives. The service center, the mission staff, and the
senior couples gathered on Thursday afternoon for a surprise dessert farewell for the Martins. They left Friday morning for Mountain Home, Idaho. We all wrote
some farewell thoughts that they took with them on their flight home.

Our translators and support staff

It was bittersweet for them to leave as I am sure it will be
for all of us. We really grow to love this country and its people – especially the
devoted and faithful church members.

Two cheerful and friendly cleaning ladieswith the Martins

We also greeted Flat Stanley, a cardboard cutout boy, sent
by our granddaughter Juliana’s school class from Little Rock, Arkansas.

Look who came to visit us

The object is
to take Flat Stanley’s picture somewhere distinctive of where he visits and
then send him back to his class where he will be dispatched to some other part
of the world.

I've been sent to Outer Mongolia

Flat Stanley says "San ban oh"

We took Flat Stanley to visit a statue of Chinggis Khan and to
our English class on Friday night. Flat Stanley enjoyed his visit to Mongolia
and we had some fun showing him the sights.

Primary singing time

Other duties. Since
we have our Saturdays free, Sister Farmer is now helping teach on keyboard
class on Saturday mornings. On Sunday I visited her Primary and watched them
learn “Joy to the World” in Mongolian. The picture shows the entire primary
and nursery all in one room. It was really different from our super organized Primaries
in the United States but it all seemed to work out. I was off in another corner
playing games with a 2 year old boy.

About Me

Dr. Val Farmer, Psychologist, has 36 years of professional experience to his writing and counseling career. He used a concise, researched writing style to meet his reader's needs.
As a newspaper columnist since 1984, Farmer has shared concise, ever-wise, down-to-earth information which has enriched the lives of countless readers.
Dr. Farmer has become a major voice in the area of rural psychology. You can find his archived writings at www.valfarmer.com.